You may remember in the ancient history that was pre-Easter, Superloop (ASX:SLC) and Aussie Broadband (ASX:ABB) were involved in a strange kind of situation.
Aussie Broadband had recently picked up a 20% stake in Superloop in late February, and for a short time, everything was hunky dory.
Then somebody or other got into Superloop’s ear, and that company had to concede that – our mistake – Aussie Broadband had effectively broken the law when it acquired a 20% stake in Superloop.
This large acquisition of interest in the company was not permitted by Superloop’s own constitution. Nor was it permitted by Singaporean law.
So, cue an announcement from Superloop informing the market of what was going on – which included a notice that Aussie Broadband must sell its interest in the company down to 12%.
In that announcement, Superloop ultimately laid the blame for the error on Aussie Broadband.
Aussie Broadband, in turn, went to the Federal Court near 5pm – after markets had closed – and tried to get a judge to scrap Superloop’s notice it had to sell down anything.
Aussie Broadband also said it was going to talk to the regulators in Singapore whose rules they had broken and, basically, try to talk things over.
And that was the last we heard of it. Until today – and clearly, the talking-things-over stage has failed.
All in all, it turns out Aussie Broadband sold down its stake in Superloop to 12% effective April 1.
“Aussie Broadband refers to its acquisition of a 19.9% relevant interest in Superloop … and the subsequent notice … to dispose of its legal and beneficial ownership in a number of shares,” Aussie Broadband wrote on Tuesday.
“ABB entered into an agreement to sell 37,621,056 fully paid ordinary shares.
“Following the sale, ABB has a 11.99% shareholding in Superloop.
That settles that, then.
ABB shares were down -0.84% in the first hour of trade to $3.55.